NC seeks more megasites to land next mammoth jobs deal. It’s named its top locations.

Megasites are steering the present and future of North Carolina’s economy. With a minimum of 1,000 contiguous acres each, these expansive tracts of land have, in only the past few years, attracted the types of large-scale projects never before seen in the state.

Toyota to Randolph County. VinFast to eastern Chatham County, and Wolfspeed to Chatham’s western half. Each promise to create more than 1,000 jobs and invest over $1 billion in local, often rural communities. Each have been announced since 2021.

The state now looks to lure its next big fish. In an interview with The News & Observer, Christopher Chung of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina said the Tar Heel State is currently a candidate for 15 major private initiatives that would each invest more than $1 billion.

However, where another Toyota-type company would locate is not clear; the state is running low on megasites.

Today, there are five available sites statewide — including a location near Siler City already shared by the semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed. Of the remaining megasites, only one was identified in a recent state-commissioned report as being highly competitive to attract a company: the 2,187-acre Kingsboro Business Park outside Rocky Mount.

Dwindling megasite supply comes as demand for big industrial plots has never been greater. Companies nationwide have increasingly gobbled up 1,000-acre-plus sites as shifts in global supply chains and increases in direct foreign investment have led companies to reemphasize advanced manufacturing production in the United States.

“In the span of 24 months, nearly every quality megasite in the U.S. has been acquired by some type of next-generation manufacturing projects,” read the commissioned study released in May by the site selection consulting firm JLL. “Sites which were on the market for a decade are now receiving multiple offers in a span of weeks and months.”

Business-friendly Southeastern states in particular have been front row to the megasite rush.

“We went from having quite a few megasites around the state to put in front of companies just a few short years ago to having considerably fewer these days,” Chung said.

To replenish the state’s supply, the North Carolina General Assembly last year allocated $1 million to establish a Megasite Readiness Program. Legislators also directed the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina to hire a firm to pinpoint future site locations.

And the next NC megasites will be in...

EDPNC tabbed JLL to lead the search.

The Chicago-based firm had worked with Toyota and VinFast to discover their North Carolina locations, and Chung specifically wanted consultants who intimately knew what companies sought in megasites: even topography, regular dimensions that don’t look like gerrymandered congressional districts, access to rail lines, water and power infrastructure connections, and proximity to a deep labor pool.

JLL started its search by inviting site proposals from the local economic development departments of all 100 North Carolina counties. Its request returned 30 submissions, and JLL winnowed this list to 11 appealing candidates.

Site visits followed, and ultimately, the firm selected seven finalists. The Kingsboro megasite in Edgecombe County was the only top candidate that’s shovel-ready, or “pad-ready,” meaning a company could generally begin to build on it right away. Of the six potential sites, most are clustered in Eastern North Carolina, including within the counties of Wilson, Brunswick, Cumberland, Nash and Pitt.

Compared to other regions, Eastern North Carolina has “suffered chronic economic distress,” said Jonathan Morgan, a professor at the UNC School of Government who coauthored a 2020 report on workforce entry barriers in Edgecombe County.

Edgecombe in particular has seen several large employers leave in recent decades: Glenoit Fabrics shuttered its plant in the county seat of Tarboro, Texfi Industries abandoned its 600-worker woven-fabric mill in Rocky Mount, and in late 2021, a fatal fire destroyed the QVC distribution center in Rocky Mount. The company moved out rather than rebuild in the city an hour east of Raleigh. These exoduses have left a gap; Edgecombe has the second-highest unemployment rate in the state, at 6.2%.

“(Getting a major economic project) can be a game-changer that puts a county on a different economic trajectory,” Morgan said. “There can be considerable ripple effects — additional suppliers and related industries coming to a community.”

Now that more potential megasites have been highlighted, Chung said the next step is for the state to direct dollars into readying these locations, some of which are privately held.

“That could mean helping offset acquisition costs,” he said. “That certainly could include things like grading and clearing sites to get them a little bit ready. Or it could include designing and engineering infrastructure improvements to make sure they’ve got huge industrial scale utilities.”

This spring, the state House and Senate released budget proposals that both designated $10 million to the Megasite Readiness Program Fund. Legislators expect to release a final budget as early as next week.

North Carolina won’t be able to refill its megasite stock overnight. According to the JLL report, it typically takes five to 15 years from the moment a site is found to the “realization of a project.”

Competition for large manufacturers is also fierce — especially in the Southeast. JLL listed megasites in the region, not counting North Carolina. However, the study noted few of these locations are shovel-ready.

Edgecombe says its time is now

South of Greensboro in the small town of Liberty (population: 2,650), residents are witnessing the early impacts of their local megasite getting filled. By 2029, Toyota is expected to create 1,750 jobs at its future electric battery plant in the Piedmont.

“What we hear is homes are going to be built nearby,” said Sam Elkordy, owner of Sam’s Diner in Liberty. “We’ve already had some changes during the lunch rush, people from the Toyota plant coming in to introduce themselves.”

Yet over in Edgecombe, local officials still wait on a company (or companies) to lay claim to their local megasite. The Kingsboro location is the most competitive shovel-ready site in the state. It’s been available for quite some time; Chung remembers the site sitting on the market when he took over as EDPNC executive director in 2015.

The site has had previous suitors. A few hundred acres in the center of the site were graded and cleared in preparation for the anticipated arrival of Triangle Tyre, a Chinese tiemaker that in late 2017 announced it would build its first U.S. factory in Edgecombe.

Yet, as happens with many state-backed economic initiatives, the Triangle Tyre deal fell through. The company’s CEO, who had championed expanding to Edgecombe, died in 2018 and subsequent trade tensions between the United States and China further complicated the project’s funding.

Before its plans collapsed, Triangle Tyre represented the largest rural manufacturing commitment in North Carolina history: 800 new jobs and nearly $580 million directed to the community near Rocky Mount. Average annual salary at the plant was advertised to be $56,450, a class above the county’s existing average wage of $32,642.

“We certainly were heartbroken when Triangle Tyre pulled the plug on their project,” Edgecombe County Manager Eric Evans said. “It turned out to be a blessing and a gift because all the sitework (done for the company) now just makes that site that much more ready. (A company) can basically bulldoze or scrape the grass off a little work and start pouring concrete.”

Edgecombe officials believed Triangle Tyre would help reverse the county’s troubling socioeconomic trends. Among all North Carolina counties, Edgecombe routinely ranks near the bottom of most positive categories — like health outcomes and wages — and near the top of the undesired metrics like unemployment, obesity, and injury death rates.

“I’m sick and tired of being at the top and bottom of every bad list,” Evans said. “We’ve got the highest this and the lowest that. We need to do something about that.”

This spring, Evans introduced Edgecombe’s “Get Off the List” campaign, an effort to rid the county of its ignominious statewide rankings. He predicted a big employer or two will announce plans to fill the Kingsboro megasite within the next year.

Asked about specific prospects for filling Kingsboro, Chung declined to share, citing EDPNC’s policy not to comment on active company recruitment. But he acknowledged the megasite in Eastern North Carolina is top of mind.

“I would say it is quite well-known among selection consultants that we work with regularly,” he said. “I don’t have any doubt that that site will one day be home to the kind of advanced manufacturing company and facility that was the vision of the people who put that megasite together.”

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